Vaccination
Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop protection from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism in a weakened or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating the body's adaptive immunity, they help prevent sickness from an infectious disease. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, herd immunity results. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases;Sources: *United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2011). "A CDC framework for preventing infectious diseases", accessed 11 September 2012: "Vaccines are our most effective and cost-saving tools for disease prevention, preventing untold suffering and saving tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in healthcare costs each year." *Gellin, Bruce, MD, MPH. "Vaccines and Infectious Diseases: Putting Risk into Perspective" . (Remarks at AMA Briefing on Microbial Threats.) American Medical Association. 1 June 2000. Accessed 4 September 2016. "Vaccines are the most effective public health tool ever created." *Public Health Agency of Canada, "Vaccine-preventable diseases", accessed 11 September 2012: "Vaccines still provide the most effective, longest-lasting method of preventing infectious diseases in all age groups." *United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). "NIAID Biodefense Research Agenda for Category B and C Priority Pathogens" , accessed 11 September 2012: "Vaccines are the most effective method of protecting the public against infectious diseases." widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of diseases such as polio and tetanus from much of the world. Smallpox was most likely the first disease people tried to prevent by inoculation and was the first disease for which a vaccine was produced. The smallpox vaccine was invented in 1796 by English physician Edward Jenner and, although at least six people had used the same principles years earlier, he was the first to publish evidence that it was effective and to provide advice on its production. Louis Pasteur furthered the concept through his work in microbiology. The immunization was called vaccination because it was derived from a virus affecting cows ( 'cow'). Smallpox was a contagious and deadly disease, causing the deaths of 20–60% of infected adults and over 80% of infected children. When smallpox was finally eradicated in 1979, it had already killed an estimated 300–500 million people in the 20th century. How Poxviruses Such As Smallpox Evade The Immune System, ScienceDaily.com, 1 February 2008. Vaccination and immunization have a similar meaning in everyday language. This is distinct from inoculation, which uses unweakened live pathogens. Vaccination efforts have been met with some controversy on scientific, ethical, political, medical safety, and religious grounds, although no major religions oppose vaccination, and some consider it an obligation due to the potential to save lives. In the United States, people may receive compensation for those injuries under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Early success brought widespread acceptance, and mass vaccination campaigns have greatly reduced the incidence of many diseases in numerous geographic regions. Society and culture ]] To eliminate the risk of outbreaks of some diseases, at various times governments and other institutions have employed policies requiring vaccination for all people. For example, an 1853 law required universal vaccination against smallpox in England and Wales, with fines levied on people who did not comply. Common contemporary U.S. vaccination policies require that children receive recommended vaccinations before entering public school. Beginning with early vaccination in the nineteenth century, these policies were resisted by a variety of groups, collectively called antivaccinationists, who object on scientific, ethical, political, medical safety, religious, and other grounds. Common objections are that vaccinations do not work, that compulsory vaccination constitutes excessive government intervention in personal matters, or that the proposed vaccinations are not sufficiently safe. Many modern vaccination policies allow exemptions for people who have compromised immune systems, allergies to the components used in vaccinations or strongly held objections. In countries with limited financial resources, limited vaccination coverage results in greater morbidity and mortality due to infectious disease. More affluent countries are able to subsidize vaccinations for at-risk groups, resulting in more comprehensive and effective coverage. In Australia, for example, the Government subsidizes vaccinations for seniors and indigenous Australians."Time to think about vaccinations again" , Medicines Talk, Sydney, 3 February 2010. Public Health Law Research, an independent US based organization, reported in 2009 that there is insufficient evidence to assess the effectiveness of requiring vaccinations as a condition for specified jobs as a means of reducing incidence of specific diseases among particularly vulnerable populations; that there is sufficient evidence supporting the effectiveness of requiring vaccinations as a condition for attending child care facilities and schools; and that there is strong evidence supporting the effectiveness of standing orders, which allow healthcare workers without prescription authority to administer vaccine as a public health intervention. File:Londre wellcome institute boilly vaccinee.jpg|''La vaccine'' or Le préjugé vaincu by Louis-Léopold Boilly, 1807 File:A doctor vaccinating a small girl, other girls with loosened Wellcome V0016682.jpg|''A doctor vaccinating a small girl, other girls with loosened blouses wait their turn apprehensively'' by Lance Calkin File:'Serum straight from the horse'., inoculation caricature Wellcome L0009827.jpg|German caricature showing von Behring extracting the serum with a tap. File:The history of vaccination seen from an economic point of vi Wellcome V0011691.jpg|''Les Malheurs de la Vaccine'' (The history of vaccination seen from an economic point of view: A pharmacy up for sale; an outmoded inoculist selling his premises; Jenner, to the left, pursues a skeleton with a lancet) Litigation Allegations of vaccine injuries in recent decades have appeared in litigation in the U.S. Some families have won substantial awards from sympathetic juries, even though most public health officials have said that the claims of injuries were unfounded. In response, several vaccine makers stopped production, which the US government believed could be a threat to public health, so laws were passed to shield manufacturers from liabilities stemming from vaccine injury claims. The safety and side effects of multiple vaccines have been tested in order to uphold the viability of vaccines as a barrier against disease. The influenza vaccine was tested in controlled trials and proven to have negligible side effects equal to that of a placebo. Some concerns from families might have arisen from social beliefs and norms that cause them to mistrust or refuse vaccinations, contributing to this discrepancy in side effects that were unfounded. 'Opposition to vaccination' 's The Cow-Pock—or—the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation!, an 1802 caricature of vaccinated patients who feared it would make them sprout cowlike appendages.]] Opposition to vaccination, from a wide array of vaccine critics, has existed since the earliest vaccination campaigns. Although the benefits of preventing serious illness and death from infectious diseases greatly outweigh the risks of rare serious adverse effects following immunization, disputes have arisen over the morality, ethics, effectiveness, and safety of vaccination. Some vaccination critics say that vaccines are ineffective against disease or that vaccine safety studies are inadequate. Some religious groups do not allow vaccination, and some political groups oppose mandatory vaccination on the grounds of individual liberty. In response, concern has been raised that spreading unfounded information about the medical risks of vaccines increases rates of life-threatening infections, not only in the children whose parents refused vaccinations, but also in those who cannot be vaccinated due to age or immunodeficiency, who could contract infections from unvaccinated carriers (see herd immunity). Some parents believe vaccinations cause autism, although there is no scientific evidence to support this idea. In 2011, Andrew Wakefield, a leading proponent of the theory that MMR vaccine causes autism, was found to have been financially motivated to falsify research data and was subsequently stripped of his medical license. In the United States people who refuse vaccines for non-medical reasons have made up a large percentage of the cases of measles, and subsequent cases of permanent hearing loss and death caused by the disease. Many parents do not vaccinate their children because they feel that diseases are no longer present due to vaccination. This is a false assumption, since diseases held in check by immunization programs can and do still return if immunization is dropped. These pathogens could possibly infect vaccinated people, due to the pathogen's ability to mutate when it is able to live in unvaccinated hosts. In 2010, California had the worst whooping cough outbreak in 50 years. A possible contributing factor was parents choosing not to vaccinate their children. There was also a case in Texas in 2012 where 21 members of a church contracted measles because they chose not to immunize. 'Vaccination and autism' The notion of a connection between vaccines and autism originated in a 1998 paper published in the The Lancet whose lead author was a physician named Andrew Wakefield. His study concluded that eight of the 12 patients (ages 3–10) developed behavioral symptoms consistent with autism following the MMR vaccine (an immunization against measles, mumps, and rubella). The article was widely criticized for lack of scientific rigor and it was proven that Wakefield falsified data in the article. In 2004, 10 of the original 12 co-authors (not including Wakefield) published a retraction of the article and stated the following: "We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient." In 2010, The Lancet officially retracted the article stating that several elements of the article were incorrect, including falsified data and protocols. This Lancet article has sparked a much greater anti-vaccination movement, particularly in the United States. Even though the article was fraudulent and was retracted, 1 in 4 parents still believe vaccines can cause autism. To date, all validated and definitive studies have shown that there is no correlation between vaccines and autism. Vaccine Safety CDC|date=2019-02-06|website=www.cdc.gov|access-date=2019-03-22}} The memory of humans can be difficult in trying to correct wrong information that was originally seen. Even though there is evidence to go against the Wakefield study and with some of the co-authors going back to change the evidence first presented, people still believe and go off of this evidence. They still decide not to vaccinate. It can be difficult to retract information even with new evidence that proves the opposite of the original due to information lingering in the memory. Studies and research are being done to see what an effective way of correcting misinformation in the memory may be. Since the Wakefield study was released over 20 years ago, it could be easier for the generations now to be educated on vaccinations and be given current research. This way we may be able to eliminate having to try to correct the memory. References Vaccination Category:Biotechnology